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How Linguists Are Pulling Apart the Bering Strait Theory

Alex Ewen

3/19/14

Over the past few weeks, new scientific discoveries have rekindled the debate over the Bering Strait Theory. Two of the discoveries were covered recently in Indian Country Today. The first “More Reasons to Doubt the Bering Strait Migration Theory,” dealt with the growing problem of “science by press release,” as scientific studies hype their conclusions to the point that they are misleading; and the second, “DNA Politics: Anzick Child Casts Doubt on Bering Strait Theory,” discussed how politics can influence science, and the negative effects these politically-based scientific results can have on Native peoples.

It is generally assumed that the Bering Strait Theory has almost universal acceptance from scientists. So, for example, the New York Times, in an article on March 12, “Pause Is Seen in a Continent’s Peopling” stated unequivocally that “The first migrations to North America occurred between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago,” with the new wrinkle that maybe on their way from Asia Indian ancestors laid over in the Bering Strait region (Beringia) for thousands of years before traveling on to the Americas.

Therefore it is usually presumed that the primary critics of the theory must be anti-science, like the “creationists” who argue against evolution, or New Age pseudo-scientific conspiracy theorists. Thus in 1995, when the late Sioux philosopher Vine Deloria Jr. published Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact and challenged the Bering Strait Theory, he was savagely attacked by many scientists who lumped him in with those fringe groups.

The vitriol that poured from some of the harshest critics, such as John Whittaker, a professor of anthropology at Grinnell College, who referred to Deloria's book as "a wretched piece of Native American creationist claptrap,” seemed excessive. The critics also demonstrated that they clearly did not comprehend Deloria’s argument. Red Earth, White Lies, embroidered by Deloria’s wry sense of humor and rambling musings, shows he was not anti-science, but rather anti-scientist. In particular, he was against those scientists who held narrow views of the world, who had no respect for other people’s traditions, who fostered a cult of superiority either for themselves or for their society, and who were afraid to search for the truth unless it already conformed with established opinion.

Deloria also argued that science, when studying people, was not neutral. In his view, some scientific theories harbored social and political agendas that were used to deprive Indians and other minorities of their rights. Many of the assumptions that underlay certain scientific principles were based on obsolete religious or social views, and he urged science to shed these dubious relics. The issue for Deloria was not science vs. religion (or tradition), it was good science vs. bad science, and in his view, the Bering Strait Theory was bad science.

Umm... I am a Native American Studies major and have professors who are linguists and I can tell you that the information in this article isn't shared by the academic community. It would seem that confirmation bias might be a factor here?

Great article. Very informative for a lot of people who aren't in the field of anthropology. I think several things need to be noted for non-scientists. One, pretty much all scientific disagreements are treated pretty much like internet flamewars. You have no idea how petty and spiteful people can be until you read what scientists have to say about competing theories. This goes for almost any scientific issue but it's especially hot in the field of anthropology. Take "out of Africa" or whether or not neanderthals and sapiens interbred. Lots of vitriol. Those who propose a theory have a lot invested in it and tend to treat it like dogma until absolutely proven otherwise. I am less worried about those who will defend the Bering Strait theory and the Clovis Barrier to the death than those who are trying to use findings like Kennewick Man to say that Indians weren't the first or to imply that Europeans sort of co-discovered the Americas.
Second, while linguistic theory has a lot of good stuff to offer, it's very inexact. This is not to say that the linguists are wrong because I really don't doubt that they're right, but the fact is archaeologists haven't yet found anything that is 100% proof positive that the Clovis barrier has been broken. I don't mean that nothing has been found, but that we have the burden of proving to the doubters that they're wrong and as yet we can't.
Third, thanks for calling Franz Boas one of the greatest American scientists. He was that, and a truly good man. One of the first to fight racism with science.

The quality of the journalism at Indian Country Today is outstanding. I am impressed that your editors allow you to write articles that cover a subject in sufficient detail . . . and also the lack of journalistic drivel on ICT.
Also, virtually all of the comments by readers show maturity and the respect for other opinions. Sorry . . . I have not criticisms.
This article is especially well written and intelligent.

I would've avoided mentioning Deloria. Dude tried to attach the ndn 'brand' to Velikovsky's weird ideas about the history of Venus. (Do note that any force powerful enough to stop a planet's rotation would destroy it.)

In the western scientific community, people's proclivity to hold on to what they think they know is predominant. Though the general public statement is that the scientific academic community is devoid of emotional, cultural, and political bias.
One stance is that they have invested too long in what they now believe is fact, to reevaluate. But the Bering straight theory is not important enough to protect.
Yet once you start pulling apart pieces of the western scientific worldview, you find you have been spending years cultivating a sense of the world which may not be true. That can scare people into defense mode. This can happen across the board, and people on all sides are not immune. Yes, confirmation bias.
All I know is we do not know for sure. If the scientific community feels they do know, they are no longer scientists.

I know many Native American readers, indeed most Americans regardless of ethnicity, have come to believe the myth called the Beringia Land Bridge Theory. In doing some research for a different story I recently learned the truth and, like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter" it was hidden in plain site.
It appears a fraud perpetrated in 1590 has come back to haunt Americans who've been led to believe in the fallacious Beringia Land Bridge Theory for so many decades. The Society for Pennsylvania Archeology annual meetings will be held starting in another week in Greensburg, Pa. I'll be presenting a paper there entitled "Chasing the Beringia Land Bridge Myth and Finding Solutrean Boats."
While doing extensive research for a work on Northeastern Woodland Indians I read "Across Atlantic Ice" and was struck by Dr. Mike Collins' Forward. It triggered me to try to find evidence of my own as to answering the question: "Where are the boats." Professor Collins was referring to the boats needed to further verify the theory proposed in Across Atlantic Ice by two other top rated archeologists, one from Exeter College in England and one from the Smithsonian Museum. I'm a retired journalist and knew it could be a fruitless search or I might leave this mortal coil before any answer was found. I was NOT searching for the same type of scientific evidence, but rather tangible indicators. Essentially, were there indicators the boats ever existed?
I found more, and faster, than I ever dreamed. I not only had evidence the boats existed, but indications that Americans were mislead by the Jesuits who claimed one of their South American Missionaries had advanced the Beringia Land Bridge Theory in a 1590 book, HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE THE BERING STRAIT WAS EVEN EXPLORED.
While I'm sure my evidence will be disputed by archeologists with a vested interest in preserving the Clovis First status quo, even to shuffling and revising their alleged migration dates and, the latest, a claim Siberians sat on the Land Bridge for 10,000 years waiting for a passage to open. How did they know a passage would develop? How did they survive without food and water, in the coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere? How did they avoid leaving any traces?
As an award-winning investigative reporter I'm confident of my sources and can demonstrate striking similarities, supported by graphic evidence, that Solutreans fleeing the European Ice Age arrived by boat long before other emigres to North America. Was it the only migration? I doubt it. Evidence shows undisputable evidence of South America being inhabited before the discovery at Clovis, N.M.
I suspect archeologists have failed to properly estimate when peoples from around the globe developed watercraft. How else could Australia have become populated some 45,000 years ago. Or Japan?
Regardless of ethnicity or previous beliefs about humankind's earliest origins and/or whether it was on the back of the Great Turtle, we are all going to need to brush up on ancient heritages due to current and future discoveries.

I know many Native American readers, indeed most Americans regardless of ethnicity, have come to believe the myth called the Beringia Land Bridge Theory. In doing some research for a different story I recently learned the truth and, like Edgar Allen Poe's "The Purloined Letter" it was hidden in plain site.
It appears a fraud perpetrated in 1590 has come back to haunt Americans who've been led to believe in the fallacious Beringia Land Bridge Theory for so many decades. The Society for Pennsylvania Archeology annual meetings will be held starting in another week in Greensburg, Pa. I'll be presenting a paper there entitled "Chasing the Beringia Land Bridge Myth and Finding Solutrean Boats."
While doing extensive research for a work on Northeastern Woodland Indians I read "Across Atlantic Ice" and was struck by Dr. Mike Collins' Forward. It triggered me to try to find evidence of my own as to answering the question: "Where are the boats." Professor Collins was referring to the boats needed to further verify the theory proposed in Across Atlantic Ice by two other top rated archeologists, one from Exeter College in England and one from the Smithsonian Museum. I'm a retired journalist and knew it could be a fruitless search or I might leave this mortal coil before any answer was found. I was NOT searching for the same type of scientific evidence, but rather tangible indicators. Essentially, were there indicators the boats ever existed?
I found more, and faster, than I ever dreamed. I not only had evidence the boats existed, but indications that Americans were mislead by the Jesuits who claimed one of their South American Missionaries had advanced the Beringia Land Bridge Theory in a 1590 book, HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE THE BERING STRAIT WAS EVEN EXPLORED.
While I'm sure my evidence will be disputed by archeologists with a vested interest in preserving the Clovis First status quo, even to shuffling and revising their alleged migration dates and, the latest, a claim Siberians sat on the Land Bridge for 10,000 years waiting for a passage to open. How did they know a passage would develop? How did they survive without food and water, in the coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere? How did they avoid leaving any traces?
As an award-winning investigative reporter I'm confident of my sources and can demonstrate striking similarities, supported by graphic evidence, that Solutreans fleeing the European Ice Age arrived by boat long before other emigres to North America. Was it the only migration? I doubt it. Evidence shows undisputable evidence of South America being inhabited before the discovery at Clovis, N.M.
I suspect archeologists have failed to properly estimate when peoples from around the globe developed watercraft. How else could Australia have become populated some 45,000 years ago. Or Japan?
Regardless of ethnicity or previous beliefs about humankind's earliest origins and/or whether it was on the back of the Great Turtle, we are all going to need to brush up on ancient heritages due to current and future discoveries.

It appears a fraud perpetrated in 1590 has come back to haunt Americans who've been led to believe in the fallacious Beringia Land Bridge Theory for so many decades. The Society for Pennsylvania Archeology annual meetings will be held starting in another week in Greensburg, Pa. I'll be presenting a paper there entitled "Chasing the Beringia Land Bridge Myth and Finding Solutrean Boats."
While doing extensive research for a work on Northeastern Woodland Indians I read Across Atlantic Ice and was struck by Dr. Mike Collins' Forward. It triggered me to try to find evidence of my own as to answering the question: "Where are the boats." Professor Collins was referring to the boats needed to further verify the theory proposed in Across Atlantic Ice by two other top rated archeologists, one from Exeter College in England and one from the Smithsonian Museum. I'm a retired journalist and knew it could be a fruitless search or I might leave this mortal coil before any answer was found. I was NOT searching for the same type of scientific evidence, but rather tangible indicators. Essentially, were there indicators the boats ever existed?
I found more, and faster, than I ever dreamed. I not only had evidence the boats existed, but indications that Americans were mislead by the Jesuits who claimed one of their South American Missionaries had advanced the Beringia Land Bridge Theory in a 1590 book, hundreds of years before the Bering Strait was discovered.
While I'm sure my evidence will be disputed by archeologists with a vested interest in preserving the Clovis First status quo, even to shuffling and revising their alleged migration dates and, the latest, a claim Siberians sat on the Land Bridge for 10,000 years waiting for a passage to open. How did they know a passage would develop? How did they survive without food and water, in the coldest location in the Northern Hemisphere? How did they avoid leaving any traces?
As an award-winning investigative reporter I'm confident of my sources and can demonstrate striking similarities, supported by graphic evidence, that Solutreans fleeing the European Ice Age arrived by boat long before other emigres to North America.

My congratulations to Alex Ewen on a well researched and written article on the Beringia Land Bridge Myth and the various influences that impacted this land now called America. If he is an Indian Country Today staffer I can only urge the editors to retain him regardless of cost.
As a professional writer I personally commend his skill, talent and writing passion. Rarely have I encountered so well written and impartial an article on the Solutrean versus Beringia Land Bridge "Theory." I found his "dogma" citation to be a tactful way to avoid the ire of the Jesuits who appear, to me at least, to have first propagated the misleading tale in a book by a Jesuit Missionary, Jose de Acosta who, after working with South American Indians for 15 years then wrote a definitive book that allegedly told of the Bering Strait. One serious inconsistency was that the straight wasn't discovered by Danish Explorer Bering until 138 years later!

@larrymoniz
I can say this, Native American people are culturally and Genetically linked to people who lived in this part of the world. From Siberia to the tip of South America. It is obvious if you just have a look at the cultures, genetics and certain phenotypes though they may vary. We are not European, we did not come from Europe. European are not part of or culture or Origins. Before that All humans came from Africans period. Anyone who is in denial about it get over it.

well from the sounds of the article (which is true of human behavior) scientist with differing opinions tend to get nasty with eachother when really they should have an open mind as they are studying the world & universe around them but unlike Philosophers they can not have a debate with out feeling some sort of emotion toward the argument. Also here is a Question for people to think about Bering strait theory might not just be Creationism. since in evolution= mutation of the dna and is a slow crawl of progression what if our Ancestors (human ancestors) came from the same Group of apes in a forest/jungle in a particular spot on the map and as that group grew it had to separate in order for all to survive so some migrated this way while others the other way. the fact that people never see eachother as brothers and sisters because we all have the same mother Baffles me. we all come from Mother Earth But somehow we all argue and fight over weather this group or that group should OWN this part of a piece of land. the Land owns us not the other way around the sooner people get that through their thick skulls the better and more peaceful life will be. loved the article Mr. Ewen

just discovered your articles. good stuff. was a student of Vine's in Tucson during the late 80s, and am an archaeologist. The thing Vine knew more than anybody was that archaeologists or their fellow anthropologists, like any social science Is Not A Science. These archaeologists, namely, the Clovis Mafia, were fighting for their dogma. Clovis First, and "they walked across." The vitriol arrived when anyone mentioned boats, not only during the Pleistocene, but until Columbus. It was manic. Those who promoted trans-oceanic contact before Columbus could be accused of racism. They would be castigated as grasping at straws to prove that Indians didn't have the smarts to invent civilizations from Mexico to SA on their own. To imply there was contact, among some parts of the mainstream, meant you were racist, According to those standards, Vine was 'racist'. One of the things he mentioned relative to your article, was that there was a story about the four founding tribes of the new world meeting (i think), near the Canadian border. and that the ones from the east had red hair, and turned out to be very disagreeable, and went back east. He told us this well before the Solutrean Connection was on the table.
At any rate, good stuff. thx.
http://www.earthmeasure.com/first-american.html

Deloria's references to Velikovski made it easy to dismiss his arguments. He also came to 'The Dinosaur Heresies' after the idea of possibly warm-blooded dinosaurs became a topic of study, again unintentionally harming his premise.
Too bad, because he had good points in his book.

The point is not that the Beringia theory is "wrong" necessarily, but woefully incomplete. Could some people have come across the land bridge, or perhaps navigated the Bering Sea between the two landmasses? Almost certainly. But did all, or even most, of the ancestors of modern Native Americans arrive that way? Linguistic evidence suggests there is more to the story - far more. I'm in an American History Ph.D. program at the University of Oklahoma, and this is something I've been aware of since my first seminar here. Fortunately, we have some very excellent linguistic anthropologists who are working to make this more widely known.

This is an excellent article that deals with many questions about language that I have. Notice that the map more or less stops at the border with Mexico. I hope that scholars make the connections with peoples of these regions in order to clarify the relationships that these cultures have.

Much more likely then Europeans arriving before the vikings are Africans,as unpowered boats lost off the coast have been known to show up in south America in as little as 2 weeks..and yes dispite what dogma remains Africans have indeed had boats since ancient times.Any European contact is much more likely to have been of the Inuit variety as everywhere the Vikings went they reported Inuit as already present..including northern Europe.Keep in mind the artic is their domain.The more likely scenario would be Inuit bringing back into the America some european DNA as they migrated during hunting trips between continents.It is now just a matter of time before physical evidence is found,there are several promising digs already in progress.If American anthropologists would rather live with the dogma of the darkages then let them..but when all evidence is now pointing in the direction of ancient American populations the ones that want to cling to the past will then be a part of it & those that want to accept the evidence for what it is will progress with the rest of science into the future.Politics can only hold back science for so long as Darwin, Hubble, Einstein, Galileo, Mendel and even Newton had to first fight to convince their own discipline of 'science' before they could enlighten anyone else.It is those that follow the evidence &let it lead them to a conclusion that are true scientists &revolutionize their fields..and those that cling to 400yr old theories that end up in history where they should,as the undisciplined minds are never noteworthy.The one to first discover ancient americans physcical evidence will go through hell..but will be put down in the history books are the one who over threw dogma that has lasted half a millennium.That person will be right up there with the ones listed above& rightly so.

halito
I have ALWAYS been a proponent of 'we didn't COME from anywhere...we have ALWAYS BEEN here...
have met personally met several people, who, along with me, have absolutely no problem with the idea the 'migration' was FROM the Americas, not TO the Americas
the older I get, the clearer the picture becomes....am endlessly seeing more
'hispanic' people who would look right at home in china, Tibet, viet nam, etc...it always surprises me to hear Spanish coming out of an Asian face...
it just tickles me that white anthropologists always have to have things 'their way' or 'no way'....apparently we don't have the smarts to build boats to cross oceans or have the wherewithal to trek thousands of miles for new opportunity...damn...(oro lee....your comment makes absolutely NO sense...I am a dyed-in-the-wool 'creationist'...no apes in my family tree)

It has been common knowledge since the DNA proved polynesian origins in Peruvian populations.The Polynesians had sea faring ships..that is how they populated Hawaiian Islands. Thus no bride was ever needed. The 'land bridge' only explains the Siberian/Alaskan connection & nothing more..as also shown in DNA the rest is all supposition..and subject then to change when evidence to counter it comes along. Yes the Inuit most likely did inhabit the Bering strait as they are still there to this day and as bridges work both ways they definitely used it to their best option. Peru though has now been PROVEN to been populated by the Polynesian. I will trace& find the original article..but this is the article in Science Daily..a very serious publisher of facts only.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130417092013.htm
The article ends with this; *The paper published on PLOS Genetics also identifies lineage which has not been described to date in North and Central American populations: C-M217 (C3*) haplotype, which occur at high frequency in Asia. Moreover, experts detected a Polynesian lineage in Peru

For chahta ohoyo: bridges, migration, & accidental dispersion do all work both ways & some Asians do believe they came from the Americas. The now disproven 'DNA evidence' from the 1990's actually inspired a movement among Asian scientists as they realized that the data could be read both ways. They are partly the reason for this reexamination of American roots. As I stated in my first response, the more plausible theory then the Europeans populating is the population by Africans. That said there is absolutely no reason to think the American origins are not as ancient as those..other then the fact that unlike Africa our southern continent is not a viable resource for physical evidence as the more arid regions of Africa.Environment is the challenge..S.America is tropical as well as having a high ground water level.EG: digging in a well to find organic traces of strata is harder then brushing some sand off a fossilized rock.

For chahta ohoyo: bridges, migration, & accidental dispersion do all work both ways & some Asians do believe they came from the Americas. The now disproven 'DNA evidence' from the 1990's actually inspired a movement among Asian scientists as they realized that the data could be read both ways. They are partly the reason for this reexamination of American roots. As I stated in my first response, the more plausible theory then the Europeans populating is the population by Africans. That said there is absolutely no reason to think the American origins are not as ancient as those..other then the fact that unlike Africa our southern continent is not a viable resource for physical evidence as the more arid regions of Africa.Environment is the challenge..S.America is tropical as well as having a high ground water level.EG: digging in a well to find organic traces of strata is harder then brushing some sand off a fossilized rock.

TO THE EDITORS: My wife translated, Ms. Abbi's comment from Italian to English. Here you go:
Michael Madrid
Thanks a million, Hon! Remind me to give you a big kiss when you wake up! I might go glasses hunting after work. I'll have to come home for my prescription first. Either way, I'll have dinner ready when you get up so we can go for a ride. I love you LOTS! M.
12:07 PM
Paola Madrid [madridspm@comcast.net]
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To:
Michael Madrid
Wednesday, August 06, 2014 10:48 AM
You replied on 8/6/2014 12:07 PM.
Here's the translation that I copied and pasted into the Google translation app. It may not be perfect but it's pretty close.
"When you tell the truth, without hypocrisy, it is always attacked by people who do not have any convenience that you know the truth, and as in all over the world, theories and false hypocrites, are always the ones that have the most success, but as Galileo declared the rotation of the Earth around the sun, and this theory was jailed, why should not afford to contradict the church, for this we must always fight and express the truth that you know, head held high, ignoring the arrogant, because the world c 'is someone who wants to know more truth, more than the crap that scientists propinano every day, making us believe things that are not true, but I say that every one of us, if he listens to his heart knows where the truth is, I always stop to things that have a sense of logic and match my soul, and I am sure that many people feel with the heart when it's true, why do not you have to stop in the face of arrogant, but continue to fill the world of truth, because many people like me and you want to live in truth. Leo Friends always said, "the truth is Love", "logic is not logic does not correspond to the truth," I have grown in size, its words, its REAL TRUTH ', and Native Americans in their culture, take me back always at his teaching, his truth, so I say let's not stop the arrogance, but we continue to tell the truth, without fear of the truth, who does not want to recognize."

This article has absolutely no merit whatsoever. It is an opinion piece at best. There are no modern day linguists mentioned in this article and no works cited. Poor piece indeed. I understand if one wishes to believe in oral traditions but say the article is based on the opinion or belief of oral traditions not of linguists.
If you wish to use antiquated information that is decades or centuries old.. fine.... but don't tout your work disingenuously as current modern day linguists affirm this when they do not!
I am an American Indian Studies scholar and have studied Linguistics. One of the Department Chairs is a linguist whose speciality is Native American languages specifically California where the most linguistic diversity is found which means this is the place of longest habitation for a language group. This supports the Bering Straights Theory rather than disproving it!